NCSA College Athletic Scholarships Blog

by Chris Krause, NCSA Founder and President

In the last year or so, more and more college coaches that I have the chance to speak with are bringing up a common complaint:

Parents are ruining their son or daughter’s chances of getting recruited.

How?

Coaches are seeing parents become more assertive and acting more like their child’s “secretary” than in past years.  Parents are calling coaches.  Parents are dominating the conversations with coaches when they take a campus visit with their son or daughter.  And parents are making it clear to college coaches that they look forward to being “closely associated” with their program once their son or daughter signs with a school.  Coaches describe these types of adults as “helicopter parents.”

All of those things can raise the red flag in the mind of a coach.  Yes, they will overlook a parent’s actions if the athlete’s athletic ability is just too good to pass up.  But parent’s actions will stop and make a coach think, “Do I really want to deal with that parent for the next four years?”

If you are an athlete or parent that has been pre-qualified through NCSA and is one of our clients, you know that one of the challenges that you now face is dealing with an increasing number of college coach contacts.  While that’s exciting, it’s also a challenge to not do or say anything that might raise questions in the minds of the coaches that we have matched you with through our process.

Here are three ways I see parents potentially sabotaging the opportunities that coaches are bringing to their sons and daughters.  Take a look at this list and ask yourself, “Am I guilty of any one of these?”

1. Some parents filter through recruiting letters and materials that are sent to the athlete, and decide what gets looked at and what doesn’t.  This is really frustrating for college coaches when they realize this is happening, and can be an indicator of future parent meddling.  Instead of being a filter, be the one to make sure that your son or daughter sits down and read through everything that is being sent to them.  That’s the only way they will be able to get an accurate idea of which coach, program and school are going to be the best fit for them.  Instead of being the “filter”, be the “enforcer” and make sure your son or daughter is taking the time to look at everything they are getting.
2. Some parents answer questions for their son or daughter.  I was talking to a coach the other day that was really alarmed when they called a prospect’s house, and the parent stayed on the line and asked all the questions.  The athlete barely got a word in!  Make sure you let your student-athlete do the talking, and giving them the privacy in which to have that conversation.  Once a college coach senses that they are being “managed” or “coached” by you on what to say or ask, it’s going to cause them concern and damage the chances of being seriously pursued by that coach.
3. Waiting for ”the better deal”.  Parents are often the reason their prospects never get around to saying yes to a college that is interested in them.  They are tempted to wait for “the better deal.”  They’ll bypass an opportunity to play at a D3 school in favor of hanging on to the dream of playing D1 athletics.  Or, if they are getting recruited by D1 colleges, they’ll assume that an offer in October will stay on the table until March or April.  Waiting around and hoping that the grass will be greener at the next school you hear from is a dangerous strategy, and it often results in college coaches moving on to another athlete who takes the opportunity that they are being offered.

Making any one of these mistakes can seriously damage the opportunity for your son or daughter to play college athletics.  A combination of them can kill those opportunities.  Make sure that you are doing the right thing to support your son or daughter through this exciting but challenging time.  If you have questions, and you are a NCSA student-athlete, call your Recruiting Coachright away so they can help guide you to being an effective supporter of your son or daughter.

If you aren’t yet a NCSA student-athlete, I encourage you to consider becoming one.  Our athletes get more contacts from coaches because we make sure every coach in the country that would be the right match knows about them, giving them the maximum number of opportunities to be noticed and get recruited.  We can also make sure you eliminate the mistakes many families make that can sabotage the college recruiting process.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am and is filed under Athletic Scholarships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.